This invention relates to the field of telecommunication networks and, more particularly, to delivering calling party information to a called party receiving a given call in a wireless telecommunication network.
Until recently, the only information provided to a called party to indicate that a call was being terminated on his or her wireless transceiver unit or mobile station was a ring tone and perhaps a flashing light. Recently however, newer networks in certain parts of the country have supported enhanced calling party identification as a subscriber feature. For example, a Calling Numbered Display and Recording System (CNDR) provides an apparatus which integrates customerxe2x80x94owned telephone equipment with the calling party identification service (CNDR). CNDR adds signals to the central telephone switching office signals that are conveyed on a telephone line between the central office and a called party""s telephone system. The CNDR signals that are added include calling party information such as the telephone number and area code of the telephone or mobile station that is initiating the call. Other information, such as the caller""s name, is generally not provided by CNDR at the present time. CNDR is being implemented in many local exchange carrier (LEC) markets as they become equipped with out-of-band signaling such as Signaling System 7 (SS7). The SS7 protocol is described in communications research (xe2x80x9cBelcorexe2x80x9d) documents TR-TSY-000030/000031, dated November, 1988. Phone utilities as well as independent companies such as General Telephone and Electronics (GTE) have implemented CNDR on SS7 switched exchanges.
Existing CNDR systems allow a called party to see the telephone numbers of the last caller or number of callers on integrated telephone receiver displays. Currently, the SS7 switched exchanges only provide the calling party number for display by the called parties telephone system. Accordingly, some telephone systems have been developed to allow a called party to program a telephone system to display a name or nickname of a calling party whenever the calling party""s number is received from a switched exchange. The problem with this approach, however, is that a called party must enter the calling party name for every person or organization for which the called party wants a name to be displayed. As may readily be seen, such an approach is highly inefficient in that a significant programming effort to display calling party name information must be repeated by every individual that wishes to have a calling party name displayed for calls from known people and organizations. This solution is grossly insufficient, because so much duplicate programming occurs among the many called parties known by each calling party.
In response to such gross inefficiencies, current proposals exist to establish a database within the SS7 switched exchange or telephone network for maintaining calling party names. Under such proposals, whenever a calling party number is received and a call is to be routed to a called party, the SS7 switched exchange must access the database to match the calling party name information with the calling party number so that the calling party name information maybe transmitted to the called party. From the prospective of the called party, such an approach is beneficial because it eliminates the need for the called party to individually program every calling party name that it wants displayed. From the perspective of the telephone service provider, however, this service is expensive because it requires additional hardware (ie. database and additional hardware for storing large databases). This approach is even more expensive to the service provider because it requires significant effort in maintaining the accuracy of the calling party name records in the database. What is needed, therefore, is a system and apparatus which eliminates the need for the service provider to develop and maintain calling party name databases and the need for the called party to program calling party names into his or her telephone equipment.
A mobile station includes hardware and logic circuitry for receiving and permanently storing calling party identification signals. For example, the calling party identification signal may represent the calling party""s name, nickname or trademark. The logic circuitry within the mobile station prompts the mobile station to transmit the stored calling party identification signals along with other call origination signals whenever the call is being placed from the mobile station to a mobile switching center (MSC) by way of a base station (BS). The originating MSC includes logic circuitry and hardware for receiving, extracting and temporarily storing the calling party identification signals. The originating MSC also transmits the calling party identification signals in its communications with other devices to establish the call. In a preferred embodiment, the originating MSC transmits the calling party identification signals along with location request signals that it transmits to a home location register (HLR) to determine the serving system for the called party.
The HLR is adapted to receive a location request signal which contains the calling party identification signals, to extract the calling party identification signals, and then to transmit the extracted information to the serving system MSC. The calling party identification signals are transmitted along with routing request signals. Accordingly, the serving MSC receives the calling party identification signals directly from the HLR of the originating system in a IS-41 system. This allows the serving MSC to transmit the calling party identification signals to the called party mobile station along with the alert signals that are used to prompt a phone to notify the called party that a call is being routed to it. As may be seen, therefore, the serving MSC can provide the calling party name, nickname, or trademark without having to search a dedicated database. Moreover, this invention allows a temporary user of a mobile station to enter a given name or nickname or trademark into the phone for delivery to the called party prior to making the call. Such a feature thus enhances personal mobility concepts which are currently being emphasized throughout the telecommunications industry.